


of rose water

by encroix



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 21:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/encroix/pseuds/encroix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ten things she teaches you about revolution. gale/madge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of rose water

You have trained yourself not to be surprised. When she grabs your face and kisses you, the wind rustles and you think there goes another secret. Passing from her mouth to yours.  
  
-  
  
Her mouth is a small curve when she looks at you in school. There are things to say, but she already knows them. She presses a kiss to her knuckle, her jaw a hard line, and you wonder how much there is left to learn, how much there is left she can show you.  
  
-  
  
She tells you eventually. The sun is dipping low and there’s orange-gold light spilling across the tops of the trees, and her smile is wry. “I don’t belong here.”  
  
“No,” you say.  
  
This was Katniss’s place, and both of you know that. She doesn’t ask; you don’t deny. She sets her hand gently on top of your chest and spreads her fingers. Her fingers are thinner than you expect, thinner than you remember; they remind you of sparrow wings.  
  
 _I gave her the pin._  
  
Her voice is hard. There’s conviction there, and responsibility, and guilt. The last hidden behind everything else.  
  
You do not say anything. You don’t need to.  _I started the game._  
  
“It isn’t a game,” you say.  
  
And she smiles.  
  
“Everything’s a game if you think about the connections long enough. And may the odds…”  
  
-  
  
Her mouth is slanted over yours, her dress bunched in your hands. There’s skittering breaths that escape when there’s the slightest distance between your mouths, and it almost sounds like laughter.  
  
“You’re good at this,” she whispers, and there’s a note of surprise in her voice.  
  
“You sound surprised.”  
  
“I am,” she replies. There is no more talking after that.  
  
-  
  
“I hate that dress,” you say.  
  
She fingers the hem. “Not every fight is loud, you know.”  
  
-  
  
“I don’t understand,” you say, and she shakes her head. Already this is one of those conversations that aren’t going to end well, although you never seem to figure out how you end up here until you’re in the middle of one. “How can you sit there and let them get away with the things that they do?”  
  
Her face stays impassive but there’s that familiar light in her eyes that lets you know just how angry she is. “You think everything is so simple. Fight one way, win one way. You don’t think there’s an advantage to being on the inside?”  
  
You meet her eyes; there’s an answer there, though you haven’t figured it out yet.  
  
-  
  
“Katniss and I – “  
  
She presses her lips together and turns her head to peer out the window towards the woods. “I know.” People talk about the two of you, you’ve always known that. The connection has always been more than they’ve been able to understand – beyond being siblings, beyond being in love, something cleaving close to marrow from the same bone.  
  
But Madge –  
  
She looks at you and you think whatever you are, whatever you feel, it is -------  
  
It is.  
  
-  
  
You watch Katniss in the games until your eyes fall heavy and closed against your own wishes. She watches you, sometimes – you catch that too.  
  
-  
  
“It’s hard to watch,” you say. “Every year.”  
  
She nods slowly, pressing her fingers against your wrist. “That’s why they make us.”  
  
-  
  
Need is different than want. But somehow it’s all the same when she has her legs wrapped around you and her lips along the hollow of your throat.  
  
You think of all the times you have seen an arrow or the edge of a knife cut through animal skin. She cranes her head back and you can see the flutter of her pulse beneath the skin.  
  
Her breathing is fast and ragged, and she says, “What?”  
  
You drag your mouth over it and mimic its hummingbird beat with your tongue.


End file.
